javax.persistence
Annotation Type OrderColumn

Specifies a column that is used to maintain the persistent order of
a list. The persistence provider is responsible for maintaining the
order upon retrieval and in the database. The persistence provider
is responsible for updating the ordering upon flushing to the
database to reflect any insertion, deletion, or reordering
affecting the list.

The OrderColumn annotation is specified on a
OneToMany or ManyToMany relationship or on an element
collection. The OrderColumn annotation is specified on
the side of the relationship that references the collection that is
to be ordered. The order column is not visible as part of the state
of the entity or embeddable class.

The OrderBy annotation should be used for ordering that
is visible as persistent state and maintained by the
application. The OrderBy annotation is not used when
OrderColumn is specified.

The order column must be of integral type. The persistence
provider maintains a contiguous (non-sparse) ordering of the values
of the order column when updating the association or element collection.
The order column value for the first element is 0.